Wednesday, 29 April 2015

False freedom in South Africa :False “Freedom” vs. True Freedom

April 27 is celebrated as “Freedom Day” in South Africa. On this day in
1994, the country held the elections that brought the African National
Congress/South African Communist Party alliance (ANC/SACP) to power, with
Nelson Mandela becoming president. And ever since then, this date has
been observed as “Freedom Day”.

Freedom Day? It is a joke, a farce, a horrible mockery
of true freedom. The ANC/SACP alliance did not bring freedom to this
country, but bondage.

What freedom do South Africans supposedly
enjoy today? Yes, all are free to vote; they are free to go where they
like within the country; they are free to live where they please; to pursue any
careers they please (in theory); to live as they please (again, in
theory). But they live behind high fences covered in razor wire, with
burglar bars over every window and security gates at every door, paying for
armed response from private security companies when criminals break into their
homes because the police are stretched too thin, often corrupt, and often
incompetent. Is this true freedom? Are they so dumbed down that
they can actually apply that lovely word, “freedom”, to such a way of
life? All decent citizens are living behind bars in a giant prison, while
armed and dangerous criminals – murderers, rapists, torturers – roam freely in
the streets. The criminals are free, the law-abiding are prisoners.
This is not true freedom, unless it be the freedom of the prison cell.

What good is the freedom to vote if you have to live behind locked
and bolted doors, your children unable to play in their own yards (never mind
in the streets) without being in danger? What good is it to be free to
earn big salaries, when you are in constant danger of losing your money or
possessions through house invasions, ATM attacks, car hijackings, and a
thousand and one other ways? Are you able to rejoice in your so-called
“freedom” when your wife has been raped, or your elderly parents have been
brutally murdered in their beds? This is the “freedom” which the
ruling Socialists and Marxists have bequeathed to the country, but they have
lied to the populace. This is not freedom, it is slavery: bondage
to Marxist masters, and imprisonment within a countrywide criminal haven where
it is unsafe for law-abiding citizens of any race to sleep peacefully, travel
safely, or truly enjoy the fruits of their labours.

And even apart from the shocking crime rate – even if there was no
crime at all – are all South Africans actually free, today? No;
white South Africans certainly are not. Black South Africans complained
that under the “old” South
Africa they were not free, and that when the
new regime became a reality all would be free, black and white; but this was
just another one of their leaders’ lies. In the old South Africa,
blacks were discriminated against; now whites are. It is racism in reverse;
discrimination in reverse. Whites, simply by virtue of the colour of
their skin, are barred from many jobs via blatantly racist “affirmative action”
policies. Are they, then, truly free in South Africa today? No, they
are not. How, then, can the ANC claim that all South Africans, regardless
of their skin colour, have a place in South Africa? Only by lying.

And what about the freedom to live as one pleases? Is this a
reality in South Africa?
Not at all. Thanks to politically-correct, insane “human rights”
legislation, you are free to live as you please if you are a sodomite; but if
you are a Christian, you are not free to live as you please. You are not
free to operate a business according to your beliefs and conscience; nor to
preach the Gospel without fear of persecution for “offending” someone or other,
or “hurting” someone’s over-sensitive “feelings”. The overlords harp on
constantly about “freedom”, but in truth you are only free if you toe the party
line. You cannot live as you please, unless you want to live in
sin. Then you are free – free to sin openly – while anyone who
dares to speak up against your sinful lifestyle is in danger of losing his
freedom. What a farce! What a mockery of true freedom! But
this is how Marxists the world over are pulling the wool of people’s eyes: they
are enslaving them in the name of “freedom”. They are using Orwellian
doublespeak – words are given entirely different meanings to what they have
always had, sometimes even the very opposite meanings to what they used to
mean. Who would have thought that “freedom” would be re-interpreted to
mean “bondage”? Yet so it has come to pass. And the people can’t
even see it anymore, because they have been indoctrinated. Thus they sing
and dance at “Freedom Day” rallies and parties countrywide, and have no concept
of being enslaved. They sing and dance, then return to their locked and
barred prisons which they call their homes, and grovel at the feet of their
overlords, calling them “liberators”, thanking them for their “freedoms” even
while those same overlords shackle them ever more tightly. They are
blindly convinced they are free, even though they live in a giant prison,
cannot truly do as they please, cannot speak as they please, and pretty soon
may not be free to even think as they please.

But here is the greatest tragedy of all: true freedom is not political, it
is not economic: it is spiritual. And as South Africans (mainly
blacks, but also many silly, ignorant whites) party at “Freedom Day” rallies
and are exhorted to “celebrate their freedom from oppression”, they are
ignorant of the fact that they are the slaves of sin! They
celebrate their farcical political “freedom”, and know nothing of their
spiritual bondage. They are “dead in trespasses and sins” (Eph. 2:1),
slaves to Satan, and all the political liberty in the world will not avail them
in the least, one millisecond after death. Hear the Word of the living
God:

“Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever
committeth sin is the servant [slave] of sin” (Jn. 8:34). The multitudes
who sing and dance their way through “Freedom Day” parties are the servants of
sin. They are not free, for they do not possess the greatest and most
important freedom of all: freedom from bondage to sin. “Know ye not, that
to whom ye yield yourselves servants [slaves] to obey, his servants [slaves] ye
are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto
righteousness?” (Rom. 6:16). Those who obey sin are the slaves of
sin. And no “Freedom Day” celebrations will change this state of heart.

Men are in “the snare of the devil”, and are “taken captive by him at
his will” (2 Tim. 2:26). Men think they are “free” because they can now
vote, live where they like, and so on; but what is this “freedom” in the light
of eternity? Nothing. All men are ensnared by the devil, and only
Jesus Christ, God’s Son, can set them free. As the Lord Jesus Himself
said, in those beautiful words of Jn. 8:36: “If the Son therefore shall make
you free, ye shall be free indeed.” This is true freedom!
And how does the Son of God make a person free indeed? By causing him to
be born again, and to hear and believe His Gospel: “ye shall know the truth,
and the truth shall make you free” (Jn. 8:32). What is the truth?
It is Christ Jesus Himself, and the word of His Gospel: “I am the way, the
truth, and the life” (Jn. 14:6); “thy word is truth” (Jn. 17:17).

True Christians know the truth of these wonderful words of real
freedom: “But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye
have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you.
Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness…. For
when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness. What
fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end
of those things is death. But now being made free from sin, and become
servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting
life” (Rom. 6:17-22).

True freedom is not political or economic; it is spiritual. This is
why the Christian is truly free, even if he lives as a slave in some earthly
country, or to some earthly government. He knows the truth of what Paul
wrote: “For he that is called in the Lord, being a servant, is the Lord’s
freeman: likewise also he that is called, being free, is Christ’s servant” (1
Cor. 7:22). Even if a true Christian is a slave to some earthly master,
he is free in Christ: free from bondage to sin and Satan. And even if he
is not a servant on earth, he is a servant to Christ. So every true
Christian is at one and the same time a slave, and a freeman! Free from
bondage to sin and Satan, but willingly and joyfully in bondage to Christ his
Lord and Saviour. For true freedom is not freedom to
sin, as today’s wicked men and women think it is; it is freedom from
sin! There is the world of difference between the two. The masses
of unregenerate people in South
Africa today think their political leaders
have given them freedom, because they are now free to sin: free to
live lives of sin, any way they please. This just means, however, that
they are slaves to their sins, and to the devil! But the Lord Jesus
Christ came into this world “to save his people from their sins” (Matt.
1:21). This, and this alone, is true freedom! And no
government on earth can give this to anyone.

April 2015

Shaun Willcock is a minister of the Gospel. He runs Bible
Based Ministries. For other articles (which may be downloaded and
printed), as well as details about his books, audio messages, pamphlets, etc.,
please visit the Bible Based Ministries website; or write to the address
below. If you would like to be on Bible Based Ministries’ email list, to
receive all future articles, please send your details.

Persecution Increasing in South Africa

In 1994 South Africa became the world’s youngest Communist-controlled
state, when Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress (ANC), in
alliance with the South African Communist Party, took power in a
fraudulent election. Even prior to that date, when the ANC was carrying
out a terrorist campaign against the South African state, it was very
clear that under an ANC government Christians could be persecuted; for
(as documented in my book, “Holy War” Against South Africa,)
terrible atrocities were committed against professing Christians
throughout the country during that brutal ANC-led terrorist revolution.
And once the ANC took power in South Africa, it was just a matter of
time before it undertook various legal methods of persecuting professing
Christians. Indeed, it lost no time in making its intentions clear, as
documented in my article, Religious Freedom No Longer Exists in South Africa.[1]

In recent years the pressure has increased, and this article will
cover some of the latest incidents. Please note that throughout the
article we use the term “professing Christians”, for we do not know the
people in person and do not know whether or not they are true
Christians; and certainly in the case of Charismatic churches and
others, we are opposed to many of their teachings and practices. But
the fact remains that wherever legislation like this comes into effect,
true Christians suffer along with all others who profess to be
Christians. It is dangerous to all.

As is happening in such countries as the USA, Canada, the UK, etc.,
in South Africa Satan is using, in particular, legislative restrictions
to persecute professing Christians. It is what can be called “judicial
persecution”. The intent is to drastically curtail Christian freedom
to believe what the Bible teaches, and to live out its teachings in
practice. There are clauses in the South African constitution which
have fooled people into thinking that religious freedom is solidly
protected by law; but this is in fact not the case at all. As pointed
out by Advocate Nadene Badenhorst, legal counsel for Freedom of Religion
South Africa, in practice religious freedom and church
autonomy are being eroded as a result of the “balancing” of these
“rights” against other competing “rights”.[2]

The assault is coming from a number of directions, but the most
common tactic being employed is that of the pro-sodomy legislation in
South Africa.[3]
The South African Human Rights Commission (HRC) is at the forefront of
this assault on Christianity and defence of sodomy. And by 2014 the HRC
was investigating a number of cases against professing Christians for
“discriminating against homosexuals”:

The owners of a farm near Wellington, in the Western Cape province,
who operate a wedding venue on their farm and who are professing
Christians, withdrew permission for a lesbian couple to perform their
parody of a “wedding” on the farm. The lesbians lodged a complaint with
the HRC, which undertook a probe into the incident. Under pressure
from homosexual lobby groups, some suppliers boycotted and withdrew
their services from the farm. The wedding venue also received hate mail
and threats by correspondence and by phone.

Astounding, is it not, that it is always the professing Christians
who are accused of “hate” and “intolerance” – and yet the pro-sodomite
crowd are always the ones sending hate-filled messages and making
threats! Professing themselves to be “tolerant”, they display their
rabid intolerance against all who disagree with them. They demand for
themselves what they refuse to give to others.
Eventually the lesbian couple dropped the case. But the HRC stated at the time that “it is hoping to deal with this kind of discrimination in similar matters on its books”.[4]

In another case in the Western Cape province, this time in the area
of Paarl, another wedding venue owned by professing Christians refused
permission to a homosexual couple for a “wedding” there; and the couple
then laid a complaint with the HRC. The case was later dropped by the
couple.[5]

The owners of a guesthouse in Wolseley, in the Western Cape
province, being professing Christians, would not rent out a room in
their guesthouse to a sodomite couple in November 2013, which led to
them having to face a hearing in the Equality Court in Bellville in
April 2014 after the HRC investigated.[6]
The HRC agreed to legally represent the sodomite couple, who asked the
court to order the owners of the guesthouse to: 1) unconditionally and
sincerely apologise for their conduct; 2) pay a fine to be donated to a
non-profit organisation called Pride Shelter Cape Town; and 3) be
prevented from discriminating in future.[7]

The owners of a farm in Gauteng province, which is one of the oldest
wedding venues in South Africa, were approached to host a “same-sex
marriage” (in reality these are not marriages in any sense) in
the chapel on the farm. The owners, a professing Christian couple,
replied that their conscience did not allow them to do so. The chapel
belongs to a denomination called the Reformed Evangelical Church of
South Africa. A complaint of “unfair discrimination on the basis of
sexual orientation” was laid, and in April 2014 the Commission for
Gender Equality (CGE) notified the farm that it was investigating.[8]

But it was not just guesthouses and wedding venues that were being
targeted in this deliberate campaign of intolerance and arrogance on the
part of sodomites:
In April 2014 the Cape High Court, sitting as the Equality Court,
heard a matter referred by the Human Rights Commission against a
minister, O.P. Bougaardt, of Calvary Hope Church in Mitchells Plain, in
the Western Cape province. The complaint against him was that he made
discriminatory statements regarding homosexuals/homosexuality on social
media and in public. He was also accused of hate speech. The HRC asked
the court to order Mr Bougaardt to publicly apologise, and to pay R1 million in damages to institutions working to protect and promote “gay and lesbian rights” in South Africa![9]

During the initial proceedings the judge held that the two parties
should first attempt to resolve the issue outside of court, and
therefore postponed the matter for purposes of mediation. To his
credit, at the mediation proceedings Mr Bougaardt told the mediator that
he could not apologise for what the Bible says regarding homosexuality;
and that he would go to jail if need be. He did however apologise if
the way in which he communicated his convictions caused offence, and
said that he understood this now.[10]
We do not know the precise manner in which he communicated his
convictions; but if in fact the way in which he did this was correct
according to the Scriptures, then he should not have apologised even for this.
The result of the mediation was that he did not have to pay
damages. It was hailed as a victory for religious freedom, and it
certainly appears that way. Time will tell. Unfortunately it is just
one small skirmish that has been won: the battle is still raging, on
many other fronts.

Around November 2013 the Office of the Family Advocate in
Bloemfontein, Free State province, gave instructions for a complaint to
be lodged with the Human Rights Commission against a pastor. He wrote
to a Dutch Reformed Church and offered to help with people struggling
with the homosexual lifestyle. Incredibly, this church actually
reported him to the Office of the Family Advocate![11]

Regardless of who this man may be or what he professes to believe,
what times we are living in when an institution claiming (in this case,
falsely) to be a Christian church would actually report a man for taking
a stand against sodomy, which throughout the Bible is condemned as a
sin! Some years ago there was the astounding spectacle of Zimbabwean
President Robert Mugabe, an evil Marxist dictator, opposing so-called
“churches” on the issue of homosexuality. But it was not the “churches”
who were condemning homosexuality – it was Mugabe! The “churches” were
supporting it. What an upside-down world, when a cruel criminal
dictator is the one saying sodomy is against nature, and the “churches”
are saying it is a legitimate lifestyle! Are we going to see the same
thing in South Africa, with “churches” actually turning in a man for taking a stand against sodomy? Evidently yes.

At this point in time it is clear that Satan is using pro-sodomy
legislation to attempt to persecute professing Christians. But this is
not the only weapon he is using. Those who stand for other biblical
truths are under attack as well:
A church in Cape Town, Joshua Generation Church, taught the
biblical position on the corporal punishment of children in one of its
teaching manuals. A complaint about this teaching was lodged against
the church by a husband and wife who were not members of the church, nor
did they have any relationship with it. Note that the complaint was
solely directed at the church’s teaching about the spanking of
children. The complainants never alleged that any incident of actual
child abuse had occurred. Furthermore, the spanking of children by
parents is at this time still legal in South Africa![12]
But none of this mattered to the HRC. It launched an investigation.
It wrote to the church, stating that the complainant alleged that the
church’s conduct amounted to a violation of a child’s right to be
protected from neglect, abuse and maltreatment. The HRC stated that it
regarded corporal punishment as falling within the definition of abuse,
maltreatment and neglect.[13]

As part of its investigation, the HRC demanded “clarification” on
three things: 1) that the church’s doctrine accepts and requires the use
of corporal punishment by means of the rod; 2) that the church implies
that corporal punishment does not negatively affect the child; and 3)
that the church’s purposeful promotion of corporal punishment is also
published in its teaching manuals.[14]

The HRC demanded that the church apologise, and refrain from teaching that child discipline by spanking is right.[15] At the time of writing, the outcome of this matter is still pending.

And meanwhile, pressure is mounting to have the corporal punishment of children by their parents made illegal in South Africa.[16]
Here is what this will mean for Christian parents in South Africa:
“parents who believe that it is their God-given responsibility in terms
of the Bible to, at times and where needed but always in love,
discipline their children by spanking them, will potentially face
criminal prosecution. If found guilty of the crime of spanking, they
will be fined or imprisoned even where no child abuse has occurred. A
further option in terms of the Bill, is the referral of the child to a
social worker for investigation, and the referral of the parent(s) for
evaluation and treatment in the form of parenting programmes. Parents
who refuse to submit to the liberal ideology of these parenting
programmes, may well find their children being removed from them and
placed in foster care (as is already happening in Europe).”[17]

Lastly, a South African official has stated that churches should be
regulated to stop them making unfounded claims and being harmful to the
communities they served. In one form or another there have been similar
calls made over the years. This time it issued from the mouth of Thoko
Mkwanazi-Xaluva, the chairwoman of the Commission for the Promotion and
Protection of the Rights of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic
Communities. She said: “They [church leaders] need to be regulated by
their own peers because they understand the field better. Right now, I
can say I am an archbishop and start selling water and ask people to eat
grass and wash it down with petrol. It is free for all. If there was a
body to regulate churches, places like that would be forced to close
down by their own peers because they know what can be done spiritually
and what not.”[18]

The purported reason for this plan was because of the wicked deeds
of certain Charismatic pastors in recent times. One of them reportedly
made members of his congregation eat grass and drink petrol. This of
course provides the government – always on the lookout for ways to gain
ever more control over the citizens – the excuse it needs to introduce
legislation to restrict religious freedom even further. But how easily
such a regulative body would be manipulated by the powers that be!
There is no true religious freedom where a panel of people have the
power to force the closure of religious institutions merely because they
deem them to be undesirable. This creates a forced uniformity of
religion that would be extremely dangerous for all true Christians, who
stand against the ecumenical and interfaith movements. In the name of
“protecting religious freedom”, such “oversight” bodies would actually curtail religious freedom and enforce compliance with what the State deems to be acceptable religious practice.

In a 2013 article[19] we wrote:
How all this reminds one of the story of the Three Little Pigs and
the Big Bad Wolf! Remember that children’s story? The wolf said, “I’ll
huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house down!” And he blew down
two of the houses. But he could not blow down the strong, solidly-built
house of the last of the pigs. The State is the wolf, the true Church
is the solidly-built house. The State huffs and puffs against the
Church – this is what we are seeing today, all over the world. There is
a great huffing and puffing against the Church, a satanically-inspired
attempt to blow the Lord’s house down, from all kinds of angles. Many
“churches” crumble and fall, but these are the ones not built upon
Christ the solid Rock (Matt. 7:24-27). These are the ones which say
things like, “But if it’s the law then we must accept it!” or, “But it’s
just a small, peripheral issue; we don’t need to hold on to it!” The
true Church of the Lord Jesus Christ will continue to stand when
multitudes of false professing “churches” and “christians” buckle and
give in to the State’s huffing and puffing. But make no mistake: the
State is powerful and it is determined, and it has declared war on the
true Church and the biblical Gospel. Its goal is to blow the Lord’s
house down, and it will use every piece of wicked legislation it can
create to achieve this goal. Yet Christ the Lord must be obeyed and
served, first and foremost.

Truly, the storm clouds are gathering! Christians’ freedoms are
being eroded, taken away, even while the freedoms of sexual perverts are
now enshrined in law. This is a spiritual war between Christ and
Satan. It is the devil masquerading as an angel of light, declaring
through his servants that what has always been wrong is now right, and
what has always been right is now wrong.

These are dark days, trying times, for the people of God. But the
Scriptures are very clear: the complete Gospel of Christ, “all the
counsel of God” (Acts 20:27), is not proclaimed if Christians allow the
State to dictate the parameters of what may or may not be proclaimed.
And the only answer we can give is that of the apostles, when the
authorities “commanded them not to speak at all nor teach in the name of
Jesus” (which includes teaching what sin is, and teaching how parents ought to act, etc., for this is all part of teaching all that
Christ has commanded, as being part of preaching the whole Gospel
(compare Matt. 28:20 with Mk. 16:15): they replied, “Whether it be right
in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye.
For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard” (Acts
4:18-20).

January 2015

Shaun Willcock is a minister of the Gospel. He runs Bible
Based Ministries. For other articles (which may be downloaded and
printed), as well as details about his books, audio messages, pamphlets,
etc., please visit the Bible Based Ministries website; or write to the
address below. If you would like to be on Bible Based Ministries’ email
list, to receive all future articles, please send your details.